I have no idea what you're talking about, but if saying incomprehensibly vague things is a valid debate strategy, then checkmate I guess?

City life comes with more negative externalities.

I thought you guys were trolling but maybe not. Living rural you could have almost zero impact. Have a small place, set up solar for power, grow most of your own food, treat your own waste, ect. My point was that if you are a big environmentalist this is what you would be doing, not living in nyc. Also nyc hurts the environment in much bigger ways than carbon footprint. One easy example is Nyc pollution has left a dead zone in all the water that surround it.

We get that, but the argument "you don't really care about X unless you do Y" is just dumb. It's no different than people giving Al Gore crap for flying in... *gasp* an airplane!

Nah. It isn't dumb. If you believe the environment is so important you would stop and think if what you are doing is impacting the environment. It's called principles.

Paul, you of all people should see the obvious problem with thinking like that and an issue as large as "the environment"

No. You should think about it again. If you are a super huge environment guy, why would you live in the places that do the most impact to the environment?

It's kinda why Al Gore got laughed at. If you are gonna preach, live it.

Okay, I guess this is going to be new info for you guys then:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

It is a financial sector city and a port. They don't create much. Financial sectors and banks can be moved. San Francisco is probably has the most efficient place for a city. Not to cold in winter, and summer is even colder. But to say you can use all the energy you want is elitist. Basically you are saying we are liberals and great we steal a lot of money when the fed prints, eases, and the federal government bails us out we get rich and we deserve the energy of the world. Who cares about peoples bank accounts just vote for Yellen.

End the fed and force the federal government to balance its budget and see where NYC goes. What if the NYSE and NASDAQ move to Dallas. It turns into Detroit.

Hate the hypocrisy argument, but it'll probably come in here repeatedly, so I'll have to keep my jimmies unrustled.

Not every individual needs to be self-sufficient for society to be sustainable. Cities have been needed and probably still are. The world needs doctors and brick layers and teachers and biology professors and painters and insurance adjusters. Not all these people are going to live in homes with land and have time for farming and yet, these people can be environmentalists.

They can do it in the way they vote, what they advocate for and in the choices they make that fit within the life they need to live. Also, environmentalism doesn't have to be the most important issue in their life to qualify. It could be the fourth most. Maybe it means they could take the subway, but they drive, but they drive a car that gets 35 mpg instead of 15. Or w/e. Or instead of being a vegetarian, they just don't eat beef or they eat fish, but not wild species that are endangered. Or w/e.

Such a person is no less able to be an environmentalist and discuss it than a person who eats chocolate made with slave labor in Africa is allowed to talk about racism or labor policy or a person who took a ride on a Boeing jet is able to oppose war even though Boeing also makes missiles.

No one is perfect and not everyone even needs to be perfect.

I see what your getting at but still no you can live in plenty of cities and immediately go green with panels on your house, ect. It is not possibly to do that in Manhattan.

That's nice, but who it doesn't diminish any argument against people who damage the environment more than others whilst pretending they're green. It's the same exact thing as not liking smoking and hanging out in bars and clubs where smoking is permitted. There's better options if it's your thing to be green.

no, that's not the same thing, at least the argument isn't.

Here, I can replicate the terrible, god-awful argument:

Paul, have you ever donated so much as a penny to charity?

Great thread. I don't have a ton to add but it's nice to see some sober discussion on this issue for once.

Thanks. Suzzer, this one's for you. It's one of those pictures that say a 1000 words. This is the Niger Delta. There were 4835 recorded oil spills there from 1976-1996. There are people drinking this water. Shell and Mobil and other oil companies employ private armies to defend oil wells from the people who are living in their filth.

There's a show called Deadliest Journeys that has an episode on guys who steal oil from pipelines and refine it right there in fetid camps. It's one of the most awful things I've seen.

It's late and I don't feel like researching but I'm pretty sure that I've read that corn based ethanol is an environmental wash whereas sugar based ethanol is 7 times more powerful and therefor a plus. I think Brazil runs their cars almost entirely on sugar based ethanol. But we 'have' to use corn based bec Mid-West votes. It's sickening beyond belief and there's nothing to be done about it.

The U.S. farm subsidies are actually helping to destroy Mexico and central America as well by pricing out their primary sectors. It's one of those policies that benefits such a tiny amount of people at the expense of hundreds of millions. It's pretty ****ing depressing.

Interesting piece. In 1985 Reagan tried to phase out farm subsidies and got little support from either party. The legislation was brought in by Barney Frank.

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/02/us...subsidies.html

Iowa primaries though.

fiiixed

My father worked for a few of the biggest charity NPOs. As well as having given money and items to local chapters of a couple in the past, as a kid my father took me to his job and had me help with food drives.

If you want to be a walking contradiction who worries about one thing while adding to the problem or enabling it, then yeah, it is the same argument.

So that didn't answer my question. Maybe you see where this is going.

I did answer your question.

If you want to defend having contradictory lifestyles that's fine. But it doesn't mean people will listen to you as much as people who are more genuine.

Low Key gets pretty good credit as an environmentalist for eating low on the food chain.